PurposeSelf-transcendence and self-enhancement motives often coexist in green consumer behavior. Customers may engage with green brands to reconcile possible tensions arising from these two conflicting motives. Using dual concern theory, we investigate how customers' altruistic, biospheric and egoistic values drive desired self-identity and perceived life-meaning rewards, as mediated by their post-purchase green brand engagement (GBE). We also test whether perceived effort worthiness moderates these associations.Design/methodology/approachData were collected via survey from 368 electric/hybrid vehicle owners and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsResults reveal that customers' altruistic and egoistic values impact desired self-identity and perceived life-meaning rewards through their engagement with green brands. While perceived effort worthiness had no bearing on desired self-identity, it was found to strengthen the indirect effects of altruistic and egoistic values on perceived life-meaning rewards through post-purchase customer engagement with green brands.Originality/valueWe identify customer brand engagement following purchase as an instrumental mechanism for managing potential inner tensions created by dueling motives in green post-purchase customer reactions. Additionally, we respond to calls for engagement-based boundary conditions by highlighting the moderating role of perceived effort worthiness between customer engagement and perceived life-meaning rewards.

This study investigates the semantic nuances food producers and livestream sellers use in livestream shopping to instigate sustainable food consumption. Guided by social conformity and self-construal theory, we suggest the community environment specific to livestream shopping over other shopping scenarios (e.g. in-store) enhances conformity among viewers. Thus, we theorize that semantic cues focusing on "other" are more influential than those focusing on "self" when it comes to sustainable food consumption. We analyzed 17,520 minutes of speech from livestream sellers selling food products to identify the top 20 keywords associated with sustainable food consumption. Using econometric modeling on 416 products using these keywords, we determined that other-oriented cues were more influential than self-orientation cues in stimulating sales of sustainable foods. Further, we showed the relationship between other-oriented cues and sales of sustainable food is amplified when more sellers promote the product. We provide both theoretical and managerial implications which are discussed.

If social partnerships can lead to favourable outcomes for not-for-profit organisations (NPOs), what steps are managers taking to achieve such outcomes? We address this question by conducting a mixed-methods study in a professional sports social partnership context in Australia. First, a survey with 4,193 sport team fans - a key target audience for NPOs was conducted to understand the impact of contextual factors (i.e. NPO reputation and perceived fit) on the consumer behaviour process, including donation, volunteer, and advocacy intentions for NPOs involved in a social partnership. Following the confirmation of favourable NPO outcomes, interviews with 11 NPO managers were conducted to explore the business practice inputs of their social partnerships. Interviews showed social partnerships were characterised by a power imbalance in favour of the sports organisation leading to a lack of co-creation of value. Further, despite an expressed intention to formalise the partnerships, formality waned as the partnership moved through the different partnership stages. Results across the two studies demonstrate the need for a more deliberate and strategic approach to social partnerships. Theoretically, we build on the limited work addressing the NPO perspective of social partnerships by adopting a dual stakeholder perspective.

Firms regularly call on multiple social media communication tactics (e.g. influencers, user-generated content and brand messages) to interact with their customers. Drawing on both parasocial relationship and social identity theories, we investigate the relative effectiveness of brand-directed versus influencer-directed social media marketing in stimulating both customer engagement and purchase behaviour. First, we use a survey research design to collect data on customers’ intention to engage with the brand and purchase when exposed to brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing. Second, we collect data from a field experiment on a social media platform that captures customer engagement and brand sales at aggregate levels attributed to brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing. Consistently across both studies, we find that brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing positively impact customer engagement and customer purchase behaviour. Further evidenced across both studies, we find brand-directed social media marketing is more effective than influencer-directed social media marketing in fostering customer engagement, whereas influencer-directed social media marketing is more effective in driving customer purchases. We also find that female customers are more impacted by influencer-directed social media marketing on both dimensions than brand-directed social media marketing. The study provides a strategic direction for brands to optimally allocate their limited digital marketing budget between brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing based on their marketing objectives central to customer behaviour – either enhancing longer-term customer relationship building via engagement or generating shorter-term sales.

Socially stigmatized service workers (SSWs) like probation officers, social workers, and even aged care workers are often subject to negative media scrutiny when a crisis occurs, leading to public outrage and subsequent high attrition rates. The primary focus of this study is to examine the potential for marketing communication to generate a state of empathic concern amongst the public towards SSWs because an empathic public is less likely to want to punish, despite media calls to do so. A case is presented for the use of marketing communication explained through the lens of narrative execution and the general theory of emotion. Using a content analysis of public service announcements from representative bodies of social workers, in the US, UK and Australia we find little evidence of strategic intent to use narrative format or elicit empathic concern. A call and direction for further research is made in light of this finding.

As professional sports teams commonly partner with multiple charity organizations to achieve corporate social responsibility objectives, the purpose of this research was to measure charity brand awareness among sports fans via unaided recall. Further, this study proposed antecedents to awareness, including; level of fandom, overall season-ticket holder (STH) satisfaction, perceptions of on-field performance, live game viewership frequency, televised game viewership frequency, and digital channel interaction frequency. A survey was used to collect data from STHs across three professional sports teams (n = 8,414). Fan recall of charity partners was low with 1.3% recalling three, 3.5% recalling two, and 9.6% able to recall at least one charity partner. Of the antecedents, overall STH satisfaction and frequency of live game viewership were the most influential while, perceptions of on-field performance returned a significant and negative result. It is advocated sports teams reduce the number of charity partners and charity managers focus communication efforts on more contented STHs who attend live games regularly.

This study aims to investigate the impact of desired self-identity, green perceived value and altruistic values on brand loyalty towards green brands (i.e., electric and hybrid cars) and the mediating role of customer engagement behavior on these relationships. Further, this study proposes that greenwashing perception, which can be defined as consumers perceiving organizations to be dishonest about their environmental claims, moderates the indirect effect of desired self-identity, green perceived value and altruistic values on brand loyalty via customer engagement behavior. Data were collected from a nationwide online survey of 170 customers who have purchased and used electric and hybrid cars. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart-PLS and PROCESS were employed to test the hypotheses. This study’s findings indicate that desired self-identity, green perceived value and altruistic values positively influence consumer engagement behavior with the focal green car brands. Further, the mediating effect of customer engagement behavior on brand loyalty was generally found. Additionally, greenwashing perception was found to moderate the indirect effect of desired self-identity and altruistic values on brand loyalty via customer engagement behavior. The indirect effect of desired self-identity and altruistic values on brand loyalty via consumer engagement behavior was stronger at lower levels of greenwashing perception than at higher levels. This study offers key managerial implications on how green brands can promote customer engagement behavior and brand loyalty.

Despite proliferated growth in corporate social responsibility partnerships (CSRPs), there is limited understanding of how consumer groups native to an organization respond to partnership organizations (direct patrons). To redress this, an integrated theoretical framework incorporating consumer behavior, branding and CSR literature was developed focusing on drivers of consumer awareness leading to subsequent responses in a sports team and not-for-profit organization (NPO) partnership context. Systematic comparisons were also made by adopting the perspective of each native consumer group. The proposed conceptual model was tested with data obtained from sports team fans (n = 504) and NPO patrons (n = 355). Results indicate that consumer attributes and engagement with communication channels activate CSRP awareness, although website visitation does not and in line with associative network theory, each consumer group generally go through an awareness-to-action process. Multi-group results demonstrate a stronger intent to act among NPO patrons than fans, indicative of fans’ lower prioritization of CSRPs.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess corporate social responsibility (CSR) implemented via social partnerships between professional sports teams and not-for-profit organizations according to current theoretical perspectives. Limited resources and outcomes often mean there is a gap between theory and practice, the implications of which are not well understood. Design/methodology/approach Five partnerships in Australian football were analyzed via case study methodology which incorporated interviews, analysis of websites, social media and annual reports. Findings Despite being used as a CSR tool, findings showed most organizations enter these arrangements to achieve instrumental outcomes. Further, such partnerships mostly operate at a basic stage often described as philanthropic. One partnership was seen as more advanced consisting of a workplace plan to enhance diversity. Practical implications It is advocated that managers adopt a more integrated partnership model consisting of formalized objectives, activity implementation, evaluation mechanisms, frequent interaction, top-level leadership involvement and promotion to sufficiently achieve CSR goals. Originality/value Addressing calls from past research into an examination of the variation of CSR in sports, this research is one of the first to compare multiple case studies to assess the strategic implementation of social partnerships in a professional sporting context. Accordingly, the study demonstrates how such partnerships can be evaluated against a prominent theoretical model, the Collaboration Continuum, enabling more robust social partnership strategies.